Discovering Cromford Canal ……. walks in the Lea Woods ….. no. 2

I collect canals, and today it is the Cromford Canal.

The canal, 2024

It was opened in 1794 and just two centuries later “was acquired by Derbyshire County Council as an Amenity Waterway”.

According to my Priestly’s account of the “Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain”, it was “eighteen miles in length” passed the Codnor Park  and Butterley Iron Walks, traversed the Rivers Amber, Erewash and Derwent and disappeared into several tunnels, before being joined by the Cromford and High Peak Railway just half a mile from Cromford.

Had I been transporting goods in 1830 along the canal I would have been charged “1d per ton per mile for coal, coke, lime and limestone intended to be burnt into lime, and 1½d for iron, iron-stone, lead and other minerals , marble, alabaster, and other stone and timber”.

The canal, 1830

We walked just a short section from the former railway station before turning down a footpath which follows the Lea Brook.

The Pumping Station, 2024

But in that short distance we encountered heaps of industrial buildings, including a Pump House, several outbuildings and plenty of ruined structures, all of which are now part of the collection.

Water and green stuff, 2024

Long ago our bit of the canal to the footpath and been drained and nature in the form of trees and bushes and taken over, but in places the water reappeared and along its length there was still evidence of the stone embankments.

Added to which across the length of the walk there was an abundance of wild garlic which fascinated our Arlo who at 5 was full of harvesting as much as he could.

It is a popular "water amenity" and on a bright warm sunny spring day it was fun meeting a host of walkers along with the couple who oblivious to all of us sat and exchanged a long lingering kiss.

So another to add to the my book of canals, and despite its peaceful appearance this would have been a working canal which terminated not far from Arkwright’s spinning mill which had been opened just 23 years earlier.

And so that is it.

Location; Lea Woods, Cromford

The kiss, 2024

Pictures; walking the canal, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and a section of the Cromford Canal, 1830 from Bradshaw’s The Inland Navigation of England and Wales, 1830,  courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

One of many forgotten buildings, 2024

*Priestly, Joseph, “Navigable Rivers and, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain, 1830

Chasing down the mystery ……. walks in the Lea Woods ….. no. 1

Take one holiday home which clearly has heaps of history possibly back to old King George 111, throw in a wall and a ruined fireplace in the lane opposite and here is a bit of mystery well worth looking into.

Bits of the holiday home, 2024

The holiday home was one of those grey Derbyshire stone buildings set on three floors with a modern extension facing the Lea Brook just outside Cromford.

Forgotten fireplace, 2024

The wall juts out from the side of the house and still has two large stone iron hinges along with a hole to accommodate a lintel while opposite there is the remains of a fireplace.

All of which suggests that our holiday let was once part of a bigger structure which stretched across the lane and incorporated the fireplace.

But as ever the devil is in the detail and maps going back to the late 1870s show no such structure.  Instead in 1879 there is a suggestion that it did extend ever so slightly into the lane, but that is it.

As for the fireplace that might have been part of a series of out buildings which formed a large complex which had been a hat works but by the time the OS staff had surveyed the area in 1879 it had become disused.

And by the 1920s while elements of the former hat works remained in situ, the building that might have housed our fireplace had gone. 

Although the 1924 OS and later 1938 map show that the holiday home retained what I guess was a smaller addition. *

Lea Brook, 1896

So, the mystery as yet is still a mystery.

My directories for the area start and finish either side of the start of the 19th century, and the earliest map from National Library of Scotland date from 1879.

More of the holiday home, 2024

If I lived closed to Cromford I could search out the local studies centre, and appeal to the history association, but that for now is it.

But I have the census returns for the 19th and early 20 centuries which with time will lead to the residents of our holiday home, and perhaps more.

And just after I posted my old chum Bill Summers drew attention to the wo pictures of the house commenting on the the wall with the chimney pot, and I realized that I hadn't included the end wall with the iron brackets and lintel hole.

Now, given that the iron brackets aren't easy to see, I left it out but here it is with the hole that once would have been occupied by a lintel.

Leaving me just tp wait for someone from Cromford with access to the archives.

Location; Lea Bridge, Cromford

Pictures; of our holiday home, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and detail of the OS Map, 1896 from courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

The wall with the lintel hole, 2024

*National Library of Scotland,  https://maps.nls.uk/view/101601063